December meeting

Gill Lightfoot writes: “To experience life in another culture involves a major shift in our perception of ‘normal’ behaviours. We have to set aside social and moral judgement, as we re-negotiate previously observed boundaries between public and private space and re-evaluate acceptable codes of interaction.

In western culture, sleeping is essentially a private affair and to be ‘caught’ sleeping in public is considered an embarrassing faux-pas. In Indonesia, however, sleeping in public is a common practice and ‘sleepers’ can be observed alongside the busiest of roads, in the noisiest of market places and even on the most precarious edges of canal banks and railway sidings.”

Nicholas Cobb will present “A car park turns from a well-used, functional site into a scene of mayhem.”

Michael Rodgers will be expecting speculation. He writes: “I am curious to see how people regard a small collection of pictures I have from local estates and others tagged ‘Architecture’. A general feedback session to see how varied (or not) people’s perception of the buildings and spaces are.”

Astrid Bäerndal describes a recent project: “A 14 days project in the Ore Mountains (German Erzgebirge, a mountain range in Germany and the Czech Republic). In the past this area was known for silver mining & cute little carved wooden figures. The tradition of silver mining has disappeared because it is not profitable any more. In my project I set up signs with silver leaf on each station to make the silver visible again and to remind and reconnect to the formal wealth of this, now so poor, area.”

Christian von Wissel will be giving a brief follow-up to last month’s presentation on ‘Photographing materiality’

Jan Lemitz introduces Peripheral Paradise—Bastia 2002-2008: “Beyond its natural frontiers, the city of Bastia meets an environment untouched by any development. Beyond the signposted and the purpose-made, mountains and maquis remain places of inaccessible wilderness and beauty. This landscape reflects and informs a strong sense of local particularity. In the mean time it shows many signs of a process of disappearance and dissolution of this particularity in favour of contemporary demands. I was interested in the frictions and tensions emerging from a process of settling into a consistent, natural environment. Seen from the distance, the land-scape becomes decipherable as somewhere between paradise and the periphery.”